


A Fucked Up Kind of Existence

by EternallyEC



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Gen, Heavy Angst, Post Series, this isn't very nice to Finch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21567157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternallyEC/pseuds/EternallyEC
Summary: Sometimes, when Shaw wakes up in the middle of the night for no good reason at all, she still reaches out for Root and the dull pain in her chest feels like it’s new when she’s not there and she remembers.
Relationships: Root/Sameen Shaw, Sameen Shaw & The Machine
Comments: 5
Kudos: 46





	A Fucked Up Kind of Existence

**Author's Note:**

> I can't seem to quit writing angst about 5x10 these days. Even though it destroyed me when it happened (and when I re-watched recently) and my headcanon is still firmly in the Root is alive camp, I've always loved angst and when I stumbled upon post-series fics about Shaw trying to deal... I've been fascinated since. Been reading angst all day again and this practically wrote itself! 
> 
> I promise Christmas-y fluff is coming to make up for all the angst soon but for now, enjoy and please let me know what you think!

Sometimes, when Shaw wakes up in the middle of the night for no good reason at all, she still reaches out for Root and the dull pain in her chest feels like it’s new when she’s not there and she remembers.

Somehow, the days are easier. When the sun is out and there are numbers to be worked, numbers that she now works alone as the new analog interface, it’s easy to keep her mind off of Root and the torture she’d endured under Greer’s command to keep her safe. She hardly even remembers that she endured well over 7,000 simulations without betraying Root, only to finally come face-to-face with her again and having only four days with her before she was dead.

But then her earpiece will crackle to life and she hears Root’s voice in her ear and if sometimes she has to stop to take a breath and remind herself that _it’s not Root, it will never be Root again…_

Well, there’s no one left to put on an act for anyway, so it’s all a moot point as far as she’s concerned.

But at any rate, the nights are always worse. The nightmares she’d started having after her escape from Samaritan had only ever been held at bay by Root and had resumed with a vengeance the first time she’d managed any sleep at all after she’d…

“ _Sameen.”_

Shaw grits her teeth at the sound of the Machine in her ear and contemplates, as she has far more than once, tearing the earpiece from her ear and throwing it across the room. She still doesn’t know why she agreed to have a camera placed in her bedroom at all, but the Machine choosing to interfere _now_ and in _her_ voice…

“ _I’m sorry, Shaw.”_

And just like that, Shaw remembers. She remembers the way that the Machine had haltingly questioned if She should use a different voice the first time that Shaw had snapped at Her in anger and confusion at the sound. She remembers the way that she’d grown cold and angry at the thought and immediately disagreed, the way that in some fucked up way she knew wasn’t healthy, she would rather have _any_ version of Root that she could than risk losing her forever.

She remembers how she’d agreed to the camera in the bedroom because it still felt so dark and the shadows threatening and she simply couldn’t bear to be alone after the four nights of feeling almost completely safe that she’d experienced.

Sure, the Machine had been Root’s god and She will never be hers, but Shaw couldn’t deny that she found a strange sort of solace in knowing that Root lived on in Her in some way she wasn’t wired to understand. But she knows that she doesn’t have to understand to be grateful for it, for Her, and for the way that she knows the Machine will always look out for her. It’s more than about her usefulness, Shaw understands now; the Machine _can_ care about them, a fact Root had long understood when the others didn’t, and She’ll protect her for as long as she can for that reason and for Root’s sake.

Because the truth is, She and Shaw have found a common ground more often than not in sharing conversations about their grief and Shaw knows that the Machine did love Root. And by sharing conversations; of course, the Machine usually spoke and Shaw listened, very rarely interjecting because grief was something that she still didn’t understand and had no desire to.

To Sameen Shaw, grief was waking up in the middle of the night and reaching for someone who wasn’t there and would never be there again. It was wearing Root’s too-long for her leather jacket until her smell had been totally replaced by Shaw’s but still not being able to let go of it. It was in the way that Bear still whined and wandered restlessly around the apartment sometimes looking for the brunette who would never break into her apartment again.

Her grief came in waves and if sometimes she feels like she was drowning in it, Shaw prefers to ignore it as much as she can.

Sighing heavily as she remembers the voice in her earpiece, Shaw smiles grimly, knowing that the Machine can see it using the new technology she’d installed while helping to get Her back up and running again. “I miss her,” she admits softly, the words sounding far too loud and yet easy enough to say in the near-total darkness of her bedroom.

The Machine’s response is measured and even quieter than Shaw’s. “ _I miss her too, Shaw. If there was any way that I could have saved her...”_

“I know,” she whispers back. “She always was an idiot about Finch,” she snorts, needing to make a joke out of it but the words leave a bad taste in her mouth and she just feels _wrong_ for trying to turn Root’s sacrifice into a joke, badmouthing the man she’d been too willing to die to save.

It doesn’t mean that she didn’t mean it, though. She knows that Finch did a lot of good and bad things, knows that Root’s death is what finally pushed him into taking the actions he should have long ago and that Root would have been thrilled. As it is, she’s… well, the Machine had told her once that She was glad Root hadn’t died in vain and she supposes that’s as close as she can get to naming the feeling she gets when she thinks about it.

But at the same time, she can’t help but be furious with the man. He had saved them all, she knows, but he’d saved them from shit that he himself had set into motion all those years ago. If he hadn’t been so full of hubris that he thought he knew better than any of them, so much could have been different. If Shaw had insisted harder on letting Root out the night she’d first suggested it, Carter would still be alive. If they’d let her out sooner, the Samaritan drives would never have fallen into Greer’s hands because Root would have been at the bank with them.

And of course, if they had followed her and Reese’s training and instincts and killed the US senator instead of caving to Finch’s temper tantrum, there was every possibility that Samaritan would never have come online. They never would have had to go into hiding, her cover wouldn’t have blown, she wouldn’t have been taken captive at the stock exchange to save them all…

Shaw has far too much to think these days and while depositing blame has never been something she’s been interested in before, she’s quickly come to resent Finch for causing the situation that Root had died before he would man up and decide to do whatever it took to end it before disappearing without a trace. 

“ _Your heart rate’s rising, sweetie,”_ the Machine says softly in her ear. _“Are you getting angry again?”_

“I’m just thinking,” she scowls up at the camera, oblivious to her clenched fists at her sides as she tries to change her train of thought. She knows that the Machine knows better and she can feel Her quiet disapproval, but after the last time that She had tried to talk Shaw out of her anger at Finch and Shaw had sullenly refused to speak to her at all for three days, She had realized that it was better to stay quiet on the subject.

There’s no use in thinking backwards, Shaw knows. The past is the past and can’t be changed, no matter how much she might want to. She knows from the Machine that Finch is happy in Italy, with Grace, and she is well aware that her rage stems at least partially from that knowledge. It just doesn’t seem fair that he gets to live out his happily ever after while she is the last one standing and protecting the numbers with no one but Bear and very rarely Fusco to interact with. It doesn't seem fair that he gets to be reunited with the woman he loves when the only person she's ever cared about is dead and buried (and had been dug up and her body desecrated by Decima, no less).

She swallows as she rolls over onto her side, staring at Root’s side of the bed.

Although feelings may have never been her strong suit, Root had been the exception to that rule and somehow, she still was. The Machine has assured her repeatedly that Root _knew_ , but that doesn’t stop the regret Shaw can feel roiling in her belly as she thinks again of all the times she pushed Root away and the way that Root had always refused to go.

She wishes that she’d refused to go that day that goddamn sniper had tried to put a bullet in Finch and she drove the car to put herself directly in the bullet’s path. She wishes that she’d told Root, been able to communicate with her better, to _love_ her in the way that she deserved.

None of the platitudes that the Machine can offer, not even Root’s own stupidly sappy message that had definitely _not_ made her eyes water is enough to drown that out.

So sure, she was an arrow and an apparently “great shape” (Shaw does smile a little at that memory, despite everything). She was still fucked up and wasn’t enough for Root, the way that she wasn’t enough for anyone. Root had still _left_ her when she was at her most vulnerable and although Shaw hates herself for thinking about it that way, knows that Root would never have been able to live with herself if Finch had been killed and that it was an impossible choice, she can’t help the way she feels any more than she can help the way warmth blooms in her chest every time she hears Root’s voice come through her earpiece.

She guesses that she’s as fucked up as Root ever was in the end. That was what had made them work and it was what left her feeling the loneliest every day, no longer having someone who _got_ her and could anticipate what she needed before she even knew and who never put any expectations on her that she couldn’t meet.

Feeling herself begin to drift off again despite herself, Shaw sighs and shoots a glare at the camera as she grabs Root’s pillow and curls herself around it.

“If you tell anyone about this, I’ll disconnect you,” she threatens, relaxing despite herself at Root’s— _no, The Machine’s—_ answering giggle.

“ _It’ll be our little secret, Sameen. Sleep tight, sweetie.”_

And Shaw does sleep well, the memories of Root comforting her through the rest of the night and with the voice of her dead lover in her ear.

It’s a fucked up existence, but Sameen Shaw has never been one for anything less.

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to pop in and add that Shaw's thoughts about Finch are essentially my own, but they're certainly ones I can envision her having after she's lost almost everyone and having way too much alone time to stew. Thank you for reading!


End file.
